Dimensional Displacement of the Morporkian Kind
by Igorina
Summary: A series of ficlets exploring how the various members of Weiss and Schwarz would fare in the notsofair city of Ankh Morpork. Crossover with Discworld.
1. Not a Wizard

Disclaimer: I own non of the characters or settings to be found herein.

A/N: A few weeks ago the idea of the members of Weiss and Schwarz somehow ending up on Discworld lodged itself into my brain. This series of ongoing ficlets is the inevitable result.

**Nagi**

Nagi Naoe was not a wizard.

It was something that he'd been trying very hard and very emphatically to explain ever since getting lost in that wretched library and ending up here.

Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of the Unseen University however was not a man to be encumbered with fripperies such as such the finer points of distinction between 'student of wizardry' and 'dimensionally displaced telekinetic'.

"Now young man, what's all this about you refusing to wear your hat. You can't be a wizard without a hat, you know."

"But I can't do magic," reiterated Nagi for the fifth time that morning. This was even more exasperating than the time he tried to explain to Tot that he just wasn't capable of bringing Mr. Bunny to life.

"Well, you'll never get anywhere with that kind of attitude."

Under normal circumstances this was about the point at which he'd completely lose it and using the power of his infuriated mind smash every window in the building. Unfortunately for Nagi's all consuming need to displace the stress he was currently experiencing, the building, having mostly managed to survive day to day existence in Ankh Morpork for some time now, was remarkably impervious to his rage. The best he could manage was levitating a teapot in a disgruntled fashion. A move that was wholly counterproductive as it only served to bolster Ridcully's conviction that he was dealing with bona fide wizard material.

"See, you can do it when you put your mind to it."

With an angry clench of his jaw, Nagi picked up the ridiculous looking hat, which was embossed with a truly embarrassing stars and moons motif and put it on his head. He supposed he should just be glad that Schuldig wasn't here to witness this particular humiliation.

"There," said Ridcully beaming, "that's the stuff. Now why don't you run along and go for a healthy stroll outside, nothing like a bit of exercise to keep mind fresh."

Nagi somehow found the reserves patience needed to resist the urge to make comment on the apparent level of success the Archchancellor was having this strategy of intellect maintenance, and left Ridcully's office.

He inwardly sighed. Schwartz had prepared him for many things, but life on the Disc clearly hadn't been one of them.

As he stepped out into the ancient hallway he noticed that some of the younger students seemed to be immensely excited about something.

"What's happened?" he asked, accosting a young boy whose hat was festooned with so many occult symbols that it made Nagi's look like the very picture of taste and restraint by comparison.

"Oh, it was amazing to watch," the boy enthused, his voice containing an awful lot of awe and just a smidgen of fear. "A man just appeared in the library. He wasn't a wizard, we could tell because he was wearing a silly yellow hair band instead of a proper hat and… and…," the boy's excitability seemed to magnify tenfold, "and he couldn't tell the difference between an orangutan and a monkey. You should have seen it."

"This man, did he have red hair?"

The boy nodded.

"Was he badly injured?"

The boy shook his head. "He managed to stand up afterwards; well, just about. I think they took him to the Lady Sybil Free Hospital."

The corners of Nagi's mouth quirked upwards into a small smirk. Maybe the Unseen University wasn't such a bad place after all.


	2. A Man of the Watch

**Aya**

Sam Vimes looked from the report on his desk to the young Watchman standing before him and sighed. He'd known from the start that this one was going to be trouble; everything about him screamed 'unstable grudge bearer with a short fuse, traumatic past and extreme vigilante tendencies'. But the Watch had been in dire need of officers and he hadn't had any grounds upon which to turn down the two young men who'd turned up at Treacle Mine Road three months ago, other than the fact that he thought the red-head might be trouble; and it was becoming increasingly clear that 'because Mr. Vimes doesn't like the look of him/her/it' was just not a line of reasoning that those damnable busybodies tasked with watching the Watchmen were going to accept as a valid justification for turning down applicants these days.

Still, he had to admit that there had been some benefits to taking on Lance Constable Fujimia. The lustful stares he was receiving from all and sundry and his habit of using a tad more force than strictly necessary when pursuing the more petty of criminals were problematic, but as unsuited to community policing as the man might be, it was always a boon to have an officer who could draw a sword without inadvertently stabbing themselves. And one couldn't help but be impressed by the way he'd succeeded in halting that would be riot at last week's Troll New Year Celebrations with nothing more than a well timed icy glare.

"You wanted to see me, Sir," Fujimia said, expression serious and more than a little disturbing in its intensity.

"Yes Lance Constable, there've been a few…," Vimes searched for the right word, "…a few _concerns_ raised about yesterday's incident at the Pork Futures Warehouse."

Fujimia frowned. "Concerns? They attacked me first."

_Yes,_ Vimes thought, _but I've seen you with that sword of yours and those rank amateurs never stood a chance in hell of landing so much a scratch on you_. He didn't say it out loud though. To all intents and purposes Fujimia _had_ acted in self-defence, and there was a part of Vimes that couldn't help but feel that justice had been served, even if, strictly speaking, the spirit of the legal process hadn't.

"You should have waited for backup instead of charging in there alone. I don't know how the hell you did things in your last post, but where possible I want suspects alive and mostly conscious."

The man's face hardened. "They preyed on the innocent."

"That may be so, but their punishment isn't for you to decide, Lance Constable." Vimes snapped, before giving another world weary sigh. "I know that we were all angry about the plot to kidnap Constable Ping's sister, but the last thing we need is another accusation of police brutality or Lord Downy kicking up a fuss about the Watch doing the Assassins Guild's work for free."

At the mention of the Assassins Guild Fujimia's expression morphed into one of mild disgust. The young man was clearly having some difficulty coming to terms with life in the Big Wahoonie.

"Look Lance Constable- Ran, are you absolutely sure that a career in the Watch is for you?" Vimes was pretty certain of what the answer to the question would be, but felt obligated to ask it nonetheless.

Fujimia looked down at the floor before looking Vimes in the eye. "I wish to help protect the innocent; it's all I can do."

Yes, definitely a mammoth sized vigilante complex topped with a generous helping of self-worth issues and a sprinkling of self-indulgent martyrdom. Well, they did say that the Watch would take on all sorts these days.

"Alright then, but you better bloody well keep in mind that rules apply to you too: no more running into the fray alone yelling 'shi-ne' – which, by the way, means something obscene in Klatchian."

He nodded. "I'll… do better in future, Sir. May I return to duty now? I'm supposed to be on patrol with Sergeant Angua."

Hoping that a stint with Angua and her no-nonsense pracicality just might help the new boy get a better grip on things, Vimes gestured towards the door. "Off you go. And for God's sake no more talk about denying dark beasts their tomorrows either; I've already had letters of complaint from the Black Ribboners and the Fresh Start Club about that one."

Lance Constable Ran Fujimia nodded once again, before silently turning to leave. As he exited the room however there was a loud thud, followed by the sound of glass smashing, followed by the sound of Nobby shouting something about Detritus deserving a yellow card.

Vimes took a deep breath and counted to ten. "And on your way out could you tell Lance Constable Hidaka that he might want to get our soccer team to practise a little further from the building. I know that he and Carrot are enthusiastic about this upcoming match with the Thieves Guild's squad, but that's the forth window this week."

Honestly, some people…. Vimes shook his head and returned to the report on his desk as Fujimia exited his office. It was a dossier on Lord Rust's new security consultant: shown in the attached iconograph to be a tall, dark-haired man, with abnormally shiny glasses and an obnoxious air of Smug Bastard about him. Nobody seemed to know where the hell he'd come from or what had brought him to Ankh Morpork, but there were dark rumours about links with the Breccia, the Agatean Emperor, the Djelibeybian Royal Family and the Goddess Annoia. Vimes was no fortune teller, but he got the distinct feeling Mr. Glinty Glasses was going to be trouble.


	3. Trolls and Other Telepathic Hazards

****

**Schuldig**

They looked at him expectantly: the all too familiar blond-haired man with the notebook, and the eveningwear-clad Vampire with the iconograph, exaggerated accent and horribly keen expression.

"Come on Schwartz, you must have seen something," said the notebook toter, pen poised and mind possessed of a fevered focus that this particular individual had once reserved solely for dead/brainwashed girlfriends by the name of Asuka. "Did the Dwarfs attack first or the Trolls? Was there any Watch brutality? Do you think we're seeing a new wave of interspecies violence in the city?"

"For the last time, Weiss, I don't know," he said through clenched teeth, wishing to any deity that might be listening that the migraine would soon subside. "They just started fighting."

"Vould you say it vas a rumpus or more of a fracas?" interjected the iconographer of the night.

At this Schuldig merely groaned and thought once more about how much he disliked life in the Big Wahoonie.

Well, 'disliked' was possibly a bit of an understatement 'loathed and despised with every fibre of his being' was, all things considered, perhaps a slightly more apt way of putting it.

On balance, his first mistake had probably been following Nagi into that library.

His second, quite obviously, had been to fail to accurately identify the genus of primate to which the librarian of the Unseen University correctly belonged. That had been over a fortnight ago and his ribs were still hurting like hell.

His third mistake, well, he supposed that one had to be fact that shortly after being released from the Lady Sybil Free Hospital (to which he'd been taken to recover from his orang-utan induce injuries) he'd momentarily let go of the tight reign he'd been keeping on his telepathy since arriving on the Disc, in an area mostly inhabited by minds of a Trollish variety. Had he at this point been exposed to the inner thoughts of the rockier denizens of this multi-species metropolis alone, he might have been lucky enough to get away with a severe headache combined with general feelings of being 'ded fick' at high temperatures for a while. As it was however, the unfortunate telepath had been luckless enough to stumble into this particular vicinity at the same time as a local occultist had inadvertently induced a rupture in the fabric of the universe(1) and let in several of those sad, mad, many-eyed things that populated the Dungeon Dimensions. For several highly disturbing hours Schuldig had been possessed of the belief that he'd had several more limbs, heads and tentacles than was feasible for any creature inhabiting an existential plane of less than twenty-five dimensions.

Once he'd partially recovered, several subsequent mishaps of a telepathic nature had been made: walking within twenty feet of Foul Old Ron, for instance, had been a huge mistake, and not just in terms of the assault on his keenly developed olfactory senses either; the incautious mind reader could only hope that he'd manage to stop absent mindedly muttering those immortal words 'millennium, hand and shrimp' at frequent intervals sometime in the near future.

His worst error of judgement thus far however had to be, hands down, his decision to mentally prompt Ankh's premier sausage inna bun vendor to offer him a free sample of his wares. Not having the constitution of a native Morporkian the reaction of Schuldig's digestive system had been swift and violent.

He'd thus been doubled-over in a deserted back-ally, violently retching and – for what might have been the first time in his adult life – quietly minding his own business, when the fight had broken out.

He wasn't quite certain of the order of events after that. There had been too many alien minds thinking too loudly. All he was sure of was that there had been an awful lot of shouting and screaming and boulders flying through the air; and that somewhere along the line he'd found himself being seized by Kudoh - who seemed to be under the delusion that he was the Ankh Morpork Times's hottest new investigative reporter - and carted off to a discreet table at Miss von Uberwald's Coffeehouse; whereupon said reporter and his Vampiric companion had wasted no time in cajoling him for an eye witness account.

"Look, could you at least give us a quote?"

For a few moments he stared at the eldest member of Weiss. Had he not currently making a concerted endeavour to avoid prying into anything more than surface thoughts, he would have undoubtedly had a quick rifle through Kudoh's brain in an attempt to discern what had sent the man so clearly round the bend.

"What kind of quote?"

"Well, your thoughts on the situation. As a newcomer to the city, how do you feel about things, are you shocked, horrified, excited… think that multispeciesism just can't work?"

"Balinese, have you gone completely insane?"

Kudoh's eyes narrowed, but he refrained from responding to this enquiry into the state of his mental health. "…or are you and the rest of Schwarz looking forward to manipulating the situation to your own depraved ends? The public has a right to know."

He gaped. "What the hell do you mean 'the public has a right to know', you work for a secret organisation that hunts Dark Beasts?"

The Vampire's eyes widened. "Vat?"

Kudoh gave a distinctly longer suffering sigh. "He doesn't mean it like that Otto. I've never hurt a Vampire in my life. I used be a… sort of policeman."

"A policeman! But- "

"I… I'll explain later."

"Anyway," Schuldig continued, grinning at the thought of Kudoh having to try and explain that one away, "why the hell would Schwarz care about a few Trolls and Dwarfs?"

"What, you mean apart from the fact that Crawford's working for Lord Rust, whose been jumping on the 'Ankh for Humans' waggon again?"

His utter surprise at this statement must have shown, because the Weiss bastard's lips quirked upwards into something resembling a smirk. Schuldig made a mental note to afflict Kudoh with some sort of highly embarrassing compulsion, once he'd fully recovered from the headaches.

"You mean Crawford's here, in Ankh Morpork?" He was at once overcome with the urge to inflict severe amounts of pain on his team leader. There he was; eating terrible food, being sick in back streets, falling pray to the twisted consciousnesses of the creatures from outside the universe and saying 'millennium, hand and shrimp' at inappropriate moments, whilst Crawford hobnobbed with the rich and gullible.

"I don't suppose you could give us a quote about him? Only, there've been rumours that he and Lord Downy swapped briefcases at Lord Rust's last ball."

For a few moments Schuldig pondered this request.

He then proceeded to give a full and frank description of his current feelings regarding Brad Crawford.

Kudoh looking slightly startled glanced at Otto, who gave a shrug.

"Vell, I suppose ve could probably paraphrase that bit about his parentage and put a lot of stars and dashes in the rest."

(1)Whilst attempting to summon a succubus using a second hand invocation he'd got off a man he met in a pub(2). A sad indictment perhaps of the state of amateur demonology in the Century of the Anchovy.  
(2)Which he swore blind had fallen out of the back of a Grimoire.


	4. The Joys of a Free Press

****

**Yohji**

Yohji Kudoh, ace reporter, looked up from parchment upon which he was currently trying to scrawl an account of his investigations into the Cannons to Klatch scandal and tried to think of a synonym for suitable untrustworthy: he'd already used dishonest and devious twice and thought that treacherous might just be going a little over the top. Outside the first floor office he shared with five other members of the Times's staff, it was a typical day in Ankh: grey, drizzly and filled with the sound of the Alchemist's Guild exploding.

He still couldn't quite believe he was here, in the Disc's largest city, writing exposes on the more secretive and dubious activities of the rich and infamous. He enjoyed the job though, a fact that still surprised him slightly. He'd originally taken up the post because it seemed like a far better idea that joining the Watch, as Ken and Aya had done(1). Dealing with drunks, domestic disputes and Trolls off their faces on slab on a daily basis, as is a Morporkian Lance Constable's lot, was not after all a particularly glamorous profession; and working for the Times seemed a rather less unpleasant way utilise the skills he'd acquired during his days as a private investigator.

When he'd started out with the paper, it was with the intention that he'd use the money he earned to cover living expenses until he could find a way back to earth. He had not for a moment thought that he'd find himself caught up in the fervour shared by so many of the people at the Times to, well, find out things and write them down. Yet he had, and now he was about to pen a piece that would ruffle more than a few feathers amongst the cities bigwigs.

Briefly, he cast an eye over page 13 of the previous day's edition1 that was currently residing on his desk, before turning back to his report. He was very proud of it so far. It had taken days of lurking in sub-basements, interrogating the city's gatekeepers and frequenting Morpork's less sanitary nightspots to get the dirt he needed, but it was going to be worth it once tomorrow's edition was out. The fact that several senior members of the Merchant's Guild along with three members of the Selachii family were implicated in the whole scandalous affair meant that he'd probably wind up on the Assassin's Guild's _To be Inhumed_ list; but he liked to think that he could protect himself from any threat from that particular quarter. After all, nobody apart from the other members of Weiss, Schuldig and Otto Chriek, currently knew of his occupation prior to Weiss's collision with that interdimensional portal.

Having managed to convince the staff at the Times that he was son of an Agatean grocer, come across the Circle Sea to find his calling in the Big Wahoonie, he had been loath to tell Otto about the whole assassin thing. However a maliciously-intended allusion Schuldig had made to his former career whilst Yohji had been trying to extract an eyewitness account of a Dwarf on Troll fracas from the bastard telepath, had meant that he'd been forced to tell all to Times's Vampiric iconographer, in order to convince him that the whole denying of tomorrows to Dark Beasts thing had nothing to do with any kind of anti-undead sentiment.

Otto's first instinct, of course, had been to tell the rest of the staff about his friend and co-workers dark and highly newsworthy past. But Yohji had managed to dissuade him from this course of actions by telling him that he was 'trying to move on from all that'. As a Black Ribboner Otto had seemed to understand that.

He was transcribing excerpts from a secret meeting he'd had the imp from his Gooseberry covertly record, when he felt an uncomfortable, prickly sensation in his head.

He pre-emptively scowled, this was not something he needed right now.

_Hey, Weiss._

He looked around. There was nobody else in the room: a fact that could be positive or negative depending on how one viewed things. Being alone with Schwarz's telepath was never a good idea, but neither was having him around his newfound colleagues

_Go away Schuldig_, he thought as loud as he could.

In the blink of an eye, an orange-haired man with a smirk that was currently straddling the border between mischievous and malicious, appeared at the open window and slipped inside.

"I've got a story for you, Kudoh," said the telepath.

Yohji sighed. "For the last time, the headline 'Brad Crawford: Compulsive Thumb Sucker' is not going to be tomorrow's headline."

From what he'd been able to gather, upon arrival on the Disc, Crawford and Nagi had both acquired positions of power and influence: Crawford as security advisor to Lord Rust and Nagi and the Unseen University's most promising wizard in training. For some reason, both of them had proceeded to ignore Schuldig, who was understandably distressed about the matter. Nobody seemed to know what had become of Farfarello, but he had recently overheard Mrs. Palm telling Miss von Uberwald about the wonderful young man she'd hired to dissuade the Omnian missionaries from loitering about outside her house of negotiable affection and spewing fire and brimstone to the would-be clientele.

"But-"

"No, it's not happening. I mean, you don't even have any evidence that he does it."

Schuldig's sudden perplexed expression suggested that he didn't quite fathom why the news needed to have a basis in reality.

"I could 'convince' Lord Downy to put an abeyance on you."

Yohji's brow furrowed. He hadn't expected to be on the Assassin's list quite so quickly.

"It was Lord Rust," said Schuldig, answering the question that Yohji had been about to ask. "He's a little annoyed about the thinly veiled accusations of marital infidelity you made in last week's paper." He gave a sly grin. "Crawford probably told him to do it."

"I'm not that easy to manipulate," said Yohji. "Besides, I know for a fact that your powers of mind control aren't what they were." Finding out that the minds of Ankh's less human residents seemed to be playing havoc with Schuldig's telepathy had been a huge relief. Though he had not been able to stop himself from feeling a little sympathy after he'd witness, first hand, what half an hour in the presence of Lance Constable Brick could do to the mind-readers intelligence level.

"I'd tell you everybody's secrets: like the one about the real reason why Mr. Boggis visits Mrs. Palm every Friday afternoon, or why the Duke of Eorle couldn't get an Igor to save his life. Hell, I'd even try and find out why the Breccia have been showing so much interest in the Unnatural History Museum lately."

Yohji was sorely tempted. "What about something on Vetinari."

Schuldig visibly winced.

"What, you can't read his mind?"

"Of course I can," the telepath snapped. "It's just a bit…"

"Painful?"

He frowned. "I was going to say uncomfortable."

"How about Vimes then?"

"I could do that. But I'm not sure you'd want me to."

"What not?"

"Well, your friend Lance Constable Fujimia seems to respect him." Schuldig sniggered as he said this, clearly rather amused by Aya's new occupation. "He'd probably get a little touchy if you did a hatchet job on Vimes."

Yohji had to acknowledge the probable truth of this statement. He'd never forget the look on Aya's face when he'd asked him for a few words about Unlucky Mackenzie's allegations of Watch brutality. He just didn't seem to accept that the public had a right to know about these things. Well, truth be told, neither had Yohji, until he'd started working for de Worde. It was because of this newfound commitment to finding 'the Truth' that he said what he did next.

"Look, I couldn't give you the front page, de Worde would never agree to it. But I could try and get the main feature in the City Gossip section. And it'd have to be 'sources close to Mr. Crawford have made allegations of compulsive thumb sucking' too. No definitive statements, unless you've got an iconograph to prove it."

Schuldig grinned, and for one rather disturbing moment Yohji thought that the telepath was about to hug him.

"And given that he can read the future, he could always petition for an injunction before we go to press," he added hastily.

Schuldig waved a dismissive hand. "Crawford can only do short range forecasts here. He won't know until a few minutes before the paper hits the streets, by which time it'll be too late."

"You don't think that this is a bit childish, do you?"

"Don't care. The bastard deserves it. Who does he think he is, leaving me to go insane amongst the Trolls like that?"

Yohji shook his head. He just hoped that an expose on Nagi's activities at the Unseen University wasn't going to be next on the list of hatchet jobs. Though he'd only been on the Disc for a short time he knew that meddling in the affairs of wizards - even student ones who'd formerly been employed as telekinetic assassins – was a generally bad idea, and tended to lead to one getting transformed into some form of amphibian.

He looked at Schuldig, whose slight pout suggested that he'd heard those thoughts. Deciding this would be a good point to change the direction of the conversation, he removed a notebook from his pocket.

"So, about the Duke of Eorle and those Igors, then?"

(1) An exclusive on the new role of women in the Borogravian army; featuring interviews with Sergeant Polly Perks, Corporal Maladicta and new recruits, Private Tot(2) and her friend Private Bunny.  
(2)Proving once and for all that a few lacy frills don't make a bayonet any less of a bayonet.


	5. Beware the Voice

Disclaimer: I none of the characters or settings to be found herein (though I really do wish I owned The Luggage)

A/N: Huge thank you to everybody who left review for the previous four ficlets in this series.

-

**Farfarello**

-

All in all, Farfarello thought that he'd taken the sudden relocation to the city of Ankh Morpork quite well.

After following Schuldig - who in turn had been following Nagi - through the perilous transdimensional pathways of L-SPACE and finding himself in the library of the Unseen University, he'd promptly decided that his immediate future was best served by breaking away from his team mates and striking out on his own. Nagi had clearly found a new vocation and Schuldig… well, sticking around with somebody who was unable to differentiate between a monkey and an orang-utan probably wasn't a very good idea in this city.

He had managed to find gainful daytime employment within a matter of hours, after spotting the _Hardened psychopath needed for heavy lifting, moderate menacing and light deliveries: apply within_ advert in the front window of Miss von Uberwald's Morporkian Coffee Shop. He'd also, much to his delight, discovered that the majority of Morpork's drinking establishments were willing to provide him with free liquor in exchange for spending the evening sitting at the table nearest the door and engaging in theological debate with any Omnian missionary who might be incautious enter with the intention of delivering a lecture on the evils of alcohol (honestly, some people just couldn't deal with challenges to their belief system)

However, despite the perks, all was not sunshine, daisies and severed heads in this land of opportunity(1) and sausage inna bun. There are, after all, some things that can unsettle even the most violently deranged of mortals.

The _Voice_ is one of them.

Farfarello had heard the sound - or rather, perceived it with every fibre of his mortal being – just over two hours ago and was still feeling a tad jumpy and anxious.

It was, he thought as he sat on an upturned crate in the alley he was currently skulking in, deeply unfair.

There he'd been, sitting in Biers, minding his own business and happily contemplating the day when he'd have enough gold to fund that much longed for trip to Dunmanifestin, when Miss Susan had walked in. He hadn't known that she was Miss Susan at the time, of course. Hell, he hadn't even known that such thing as a Miss Susan existed. However, he had picked up on the sudden and not entirely subtle change that had stolen over a sizable portion of the pub's patrons the moment she'd stepped through the door: the way the banshee had tensed and the bogymen backed into further into the shadows. Farfarello being Farfarello had merely observed the scene with amusement, confident that he was made of far sterner stuff than the vast majority of Ankh Morpork's more occult residents.

He had been a little surprised when she'd sat down on the bar stool next to him. Most people did, after all, have the good sense to take one nervous glance at the scars, eye-patch and displays of gratuitous knife-licking, and decide that, on balance, they'd be better off at that table at the other side of the room.

He'd been even more surprised when, after ordering a drink from Igor, she fixed him with a stern look that had school ma'am written all over it.

"So I take it that you're Jei also known as Farfarello also known as Berserker also known as Ohshitohshit, It's That Psycho?" she said, giving the distinct impression that this was intended more as a statement than a question.

"And what's it to you?" he said, with his most disturbing grin, before lifting a knife to his mouth and caressing it with his tongue. It was an action that should have, at the very least, caused her to gulp and back away slowly. The fact that she didn't even recoil should have told him that this wasn't your average school ma'am type.

Her expression grew harder. "I know what you're planning."

"You do?" For some reason the words came out as more of a genuine question than the threat he'd intended. In retrospect he realised that it was probably his mind's under-used and extremely latent self-preservation instincts kicking in.

She nodded. "Yes, and it's thoroughly childish. I mean, honestly, what on earth is the point of plotting to kill every God on the Disc? Some petty grudge against Anoia? An overwhelming desire to become the first Jonathan Teatime Memorial Act?

Farfarello seethed at his… his purpose in life being dismissed as if it was some kind of juvenile whim. "When I was nine years God took my family away from me and-"

"Which god?"

"What?"

"Which god took your family away: Offler, Om, Bibulous?"

He scowled. "The Christian God, of course."

"Not one actually from the Discworld then?"

"No, but-"

She folded her arms. LOOK, YOU CAN'T GO AROUND COMMITTING ACTS OF MASS DEICIDE JUST BECAUSE ONE GOD WAS MEAN TO YOU AS A CHILD. ESPECIALLY WHEN THE GOD IN QUESTION DOESN'T EVEN INHABIT THE SAME REALITY.

He wanted to protest, he really did, but there was something about the words that was bone-chillingly final: and he couldn't help but feel as though he'd been banished to some kind of metaphysical naughty corner.

AND FOR GOODNESS SAKE, IF YOU MUST STICK THOSE REVOLTING KNIVES IN YOUR MOUTH, AT LEAST HAVE THE SENSE TO CLEAN THEM MORE THAN ONCE A MONTH.

She then quietly finished her drink, left a tip for Igor and left.

Five seconds later a host of eyes of varying shapes and colours turned to Farfarello.

"First time then?" enquired a sympathetic werewolf.

"What do you mean?"

"Miss Susan."

"The first time she uses the voice on you is always the worst," said Igor, setting a fresh - and ostensibly free of charge - Bloody Mary(2) in front of him.

"Speak for yourself," came an extremely disgruntled and slightly nervous voice from the shadows. "As far as I'm concerned the second, third and fourth times were just as bad."

-----

Two hours and five Pulverising Blows to the Stomach(3) later Farfarello stumbled out of Biers and into the nearest dark alley; where he'd all but collapsed onto the crate and set about reconsidering his plans for the future. True, the activity holiday in Dunmanifestin would represent the culmination of a much longed for deicidal dream, but the fact was that, hardened psychopath or not, there was a small, yet increasingly loud, part of his mind that adamantly held that crossing Miss Susan would be an extremely bad idea.

It was really all so very unfair.

He was on the verge of getting rather depressed and down about the whole matter, when his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a crash, followed directly by a loud _SHI-NE_ from the direction street on the far side of the ally.

Rising to his feet, he headed in the direction of the sudden commotion and was surprised to see the Abyssinian of Weiss decked out in a City Watch uniform and squaring up, sword in hand, to something that look an awful lot like a treasure chest with lots of little legs, while a tall, broad-shouldered watchman with ruddy cheeks, carrot-coloured hair and an honest, open face, stood to the side.

"Schwarz!" Abyssinian snarled, attention momentarily diverted from his new wooden nemesis as he caught sight of his old enemy.

His companion cleared his throat. "Now, Lance Constable Fujimiya, I know you're still a bit upset about certain things, but remember our little talk about the importance of community policing."

Taking advantage of the distraction, the chest defensively snapped its lid at the swordsman a few times, before turning around and padding over to Farfarello and rubbing itself against his legs.

"Is that your… er, luggage, sir?" asked the second Watchman.

He was about to reply in the negative, when the thing's lid opened a crack, to reveal to him a brief glimpse of the shiniest, sharpest set of knives Farfarello had ever seen.

"Yes," he said, with a large (and downright disturbing) grin. "Yes it is. I was wondering where it'd got to."

"You really ought to keep a better eye on it," the Watchman said reproachfully. "It almost took the Lance Constable Fujimiya arm off."

"It did not such thing," protested Lance Constable Fujimiya.

"Don't worry, officer. I'll take better care of it in future."

Clearly satisfied with this response the Watchman nodded his head. "See that you do."

The Lance Constable gaped. "But Captain Carrot, that man's insane."

"Yes, but we can't go around arresting people just for that, there wouldn't be enough room in the cells."

"But-"

"Look," said Captain Carrot gently, "you've clearly had a difficult week, especially with that report in The Time, but you mustn't let it get to you."

"But-"

"We really should be getting on. Mr. Vimes wants to see us at Treacle Mine Road in an hour."

As they walked away, the Luggage opened its lid fully to reveal a nasty array of sharp metallic implements.

Farfarello gave a happy sigh.

The trip to Dunmanifestin might be off, but at least he had a new friend.

(1)Opportunity being a somewhat relative concept. The city did, after all, provide ample opportunity for, say, acquiring interesting little rashes and being relieved of one's money, shirt and/or vital organs.

(2)And no, you really don't want to know the exact ingredients.

(3)Three parts vodka, one part Agatean Spice Liqueur, one very small drop Wow Wow Sauce(4).

(4)Please do not attempt to concoct at home.


	6. Soccer, Volunteering and Knurdity

A/N: Thank you to everybody who reviewed the last installment. This week's vict... er, focal character is Ken. I should probably warn that this installment contains a rather big spoiler for The Thief of Time, so if you've yet to read/finish reading the book and err on the side of spoiler-phobia you may want to avoid this ficlet as it gives away the identity of a certain Morporkian milkman.

-

As he helped Brick put the finishing touches to the last _Slab: Just Say Aaarrrghnonono_ banner, Lance Constable Ken Hidaka was suffused by the warm glow that came with participating in a socially responsible public awareness campaign. It was half past six in the evening and they were sat in the canteen of the Pseudopolis Yard Watchhouse with several large sheets of paper and a set of coloured pens, which had been kindly donated by Lady Sybil.

"It's not right, you know, all this volunteering for stuff," said Corporal Nobby Nobbs, looking vaguely incredulous. Technically Nobby was supposed to be posted with Fred Colon at the Old Lemonade Factory, but nobody seemed all that bothered by the fact that he'd ambled in, pilfered from the petty cash box and put the kettle on.

Ken smiled. It was the kind of sunny, cheerful smile that tended to prompt the jaded citizens of the Big Wahoonie to ask questions such as: _'What the hell is that weirdo on?'_. "I want to help encourage children to lead better, healthier lives – whatever their species."

Brick nodded vigorously, an act that would probably have given uninformed bystander the distinct impression that his head, with its contented and serene bordering on vacant expression was about to detach itself from his thin neck and fly across the room. Ken had been told that the young troll had been even more emaciated before Detritus and Ruby had started feeding him six meals a day with regular snacks of rock cakes. "Not careful and they'll end up like I was before I got put on Detritus's One Step program."

"I never had anybody encourage me to lead a better, healthier life when I was a kid, and I turned out alright," muttered Nobby, sounding vaguely resentful. "Mostly they just hit me in the face and said 'oy give that back you little bastard'."

Ken decided against pointing out that Nobby's compulsive kleptomania was not particularly indicative of 'turning out alright'. He might not have been a particularly diplomatic person by nature, but life in Ankh was giving him a crash course in the basics. That whole 'let's deny these dark beast their tomorrows' thing had almost got him into real trouble

"Besides," Nobby continued darkly, "you keep offering to do stuff for nothing like you are doing and they'll start volunteering you to paint old ladies houses at the weekends."

Ken wasn't quite sure what was so terrible about this, but put it down to the cosmically huge gap between his worldview and Nobby's. The fact was that he _liked_ doing the right thing, even if he did occasionally find himself having to work hard to quell some of his darker impulses. Since joining the Ankh Morpork City Watch, the assassin formerly codenamed Siberian, had – much to Nobby's horror - enthusiastically volunteered to help out with a number of different outside-hours outreach programs. Aside from aiding Brick with the posters for Sergeant Detritus's anti-slab crusade, he was giving Captain Carrot a hand with the Wolf Pack (though he had been rather distressed to learn that some of the children were more proficient with an edge weapon that he was) and he was always ready to lend a hand with Lady Sybil's many fundraisers. Most of the other Watchmen took his near-pathological levels of keenness to be a sign of either extreme gullibility or minor insanity, but he was generally well liked around Pseudopolis Yard and far more popular than the his fellow 'Agatean' Lance Constable Aya.

"But Captain Carrot does things like that all the time."

"Yes, but he's Captain Carrot."

This was not a fact that Ken could dispute. Captain Carrot _was_ Captain Carrot and therefore not subject to the same laws of common sense as everyone else. However, in the brief time he'd spent working alongside the man he'd come to see him as something of a role model. Here was a man who was doing his bit to make the universe a better place without having to resort to mass bloodshed. Aya, of course, had not developed similar sentiments towards the City Watch's second in command. The incident with Aya, Farfarello and the many-legged luggage had cemented his fellow Weiss member's annoyance at the Captain's insistence at treating the City's least law abiding as though they were 'a good chap deep down', rather than, say, katana fodder.

Ken himself had not yet had misfortune to run into Schwarz's Most Unhinged himself, but he had had a rather disturbing-bordering-on-surreal encounter with one Mr. Brad Crawford in the Mended Drum. He'd been taken – or, more accurately, been dragged - into the city's most reputable disreputable pub by Fred Colon, who seemed to feel duty bound to introduce his new fellow-Watchman to the pleasures of a sneaky pint whilst technically still on duty. At first Ken had tried to protest this reprehensible dereliction of duty, but the fact was that they did things differently here in the Big Wahoonie and so he hadn't put up too much of a fight when the pint of Winkles Old Peculiar, was set before him.

When he'd noticed a horribly familiar man in a – surprisingly clean - white suit and glinty glasses sitting on a nearby barstool, Ken hadn't been quite sure what to do. Mr. Vimes had made it quite clear that he didn't approve of his officers settling old grudges without an arrest warrant and/or an immediate threat to public safety (though as far as he was concerned the continued existence of Crawford in itself constituted a threat to public safety) and he was pretty sure that if it came down to it, any fight would lead, at best, to Ken doing a long stint on Igor's slab. However, when the former leader of Schwarz turned his gaze towards him, he'd been instantly struck by the fact that the man's usual expression of unbearable smugness seemed to have been supplanted by what looked like barely-contained hysteria.

Crawford had then proceeded to give a sharp, oddly high-pitched laugh and mutter something incomprehensible about Ronnie Soak the milkman.

"You know him?" Sergeant Colon had asked quietly, looking slightly worried about being in close proximity to somebody who was a) clearly bigger and stronger than he was; and b) quite obviously off his rocker.

"We've met before," said Ken, still not sure whether to attack, flee or do his best to ignore the whole uncomfortable situation.

"Is he dangerous?" asked Colon, glancing at the door in a fashion that suggested that if the answer was affirmative he was going to order a quick dash through back out through it.

Ken nodded. "Very, I've met him before, when I was working with the rest of Wei- the Agatean Imperial Guard." He'd found that telling people that he was a former member of the Agatean Imperial Guard worked pretty well as a catch all explanation for doing anything that the average Morporkian might find a little odd… daily bathing for instance.

Crawford gave another short and thoroughly disturbing laugh. "I've met chaos, Weiss, and you know what, he runs a dairy… a fucking dairy."

To his shame, when Colon grabbed his arm and ushered him towards the exit he had opted not to resist.

It was strange really, the effect that Ankh Morpork could have on people.

"Anyway," said Nobby, interrupting his reverie "have you got the team for weekends match against the Thieves Guild sorted out?"

Ken nodded. Aside from his compulsive volunteering, he was also now goal keeper, captain, coach and manager of the newly created Watch soccer team. It was a position that brought him both great joy and great pain. Great joy, because he was once again able to play the game that he loved on a competitive level (and boy were those _friendlies_ against the young men of the Candle Makers Guild competitive), and great pain because the other members of Watchmen United didn't seem to be able to get their collective heads around the fact that it was supposed to be a non-contact sport. In Ankh Morpork the beautiful game could get downright ugly.

"I thought that Constable Visit should go on the reserve bench for this game," he said, recalling with some embarrassment the evangelical Omnian's transformation from occasionally irritating, but mostly harmless proselytiser to smite-happy midfielder during the last match against the team from the Post Office.

"What about me?" asked Nobby, face suddenly hopeful.

Ken sighed. "Last time I put you one the team you tried slip the pig's bladder inside your coat before the game started."

"But-"

"And you tried to make off with the goal posts at half time."

"I was only putting them in a safe place."

The comment that Ken was about to make about Nobby's mum's cellar most emphatically _not_ constituting an acceptable 'safe place' was halted when Cheery Littlebottom burst through the door. Cheery was one of the few officers who hadn't really taken to him. He suspected that it had something to do with the pig's bladder that went through the forensics lab window on his second day as Lance Constable and first day as Watchmen United coach. The fact that said incident had been repeated six times since then probably hadn't helped either.

"There's a crisis on Brewer Street," she said. "Mr. Vimes says that he wants every available officer down there ASAP."

"What kind of crisis?" asked Ken.

"Code One case of public knurdity. The worst we've seen in two years."

Ken winced. He'd had some trouble getting his head round the concept of knurd. To him the opposite of drunk had always been sober, and the idea that there was an awful state on the far side of sobriety, which one could reach via a) advanced meditation or b) one too many cups of Klatchian coffee, where everything snaps completely into perspective and you're fully aware that in the vastness of the universe there are a million and one things out to get you, had seemed a tad far fetched. Of course, after he'd witness his first coffee shop jitter he'd been forced to reconsider. Captain Carrot had been trying to raise awareness of the dangers inherent in the over-consumption of such beverages, especially the new hybrid blends, which had already been banned in both Sto Lat and Quirm.

"Can I come and watch?" asked Brick.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," said Ken, worried that such a scene may cause the previously misguided young troll scrape flashbacks.

Eight minutes later he was in cordoned off section of Brewer Street with Captain Carrot, Sergeant Angua in her _other_ form, Cheery, Nobby, Constable Ping and several officers who he didn't think he'd met before. Also present, much to his surprise, were a worried looking Yohji and an ill looking Schuldig. The latter of whom was taking gulps from a bottle of Bearhuggers and muttering about how he never wanted to touch a mind like that again.

Ken still wasn't sure how to react to the fact that his team-mate was now working for newspaper that ran regular articles on the failings of the Watch. He was still Yohji, but it just didn't feel as though they were quite on the same side any more. Plus there was the unsettling fact that he seemed to have become rather friendly – in an exasperated-looking sort of way – with Schwarz's telepath. However, Ken liked to think that they were still friends, despite the fact that their unexpected displacement to Ankh seemed to have served to split the team up, and so he didn't hesitate to give him a friendly wave.

Yohji waved back and called out something about making sure the kid got out of this alive.

Not really certain what Yohji meant, Ken turned his attention to Captain Carrot, who was talking to a distressed young man with very pronounced dark circles under his eyes.

"We didn't mean for it to go this far," the young man babbled. "It was only supposed to be a joke. We do it to everybody who joins our cracking club: put three expresso measures of Hersheban Midnight in a cup and tell them it's a normal coffee. I didn't realise that Unsteady Bill had already given him one… and… and next thing we knew he was jittering all over the place, throwing cutlery at shadows – it take us ages to get it all un-embedded - and mumbling about how he could see everything clearly now."

Captain Carrot looked at him reproachfully. "It was a very irresponsible to do, Gary. But I can see that you're sorry. Now why don't you show us where he is?"

Garry shook his head. "I'm not going back in there."

"Just point us in the general direction."

Swallowing, Gary led them into a building with the sign Bill's Portable Clacks Repairs outside and pointed at the staircase. "Second floor, first on the left," he said, before diving back out of the building.

Captain Carrot looked at the assembled Watchmen. "Lance Constable Hidaka you're with me and Angua. I need the rest of you to make sure that nobody comes within fifty meters of the building."

As the rest of the Watchmen dispersed Ken looked from Carrot to Angua.

"It's important not to make any sudden movements," said Carrot in hushed tones, as Angua took a sniff and nodded towards the stairs. "We'll attempt to reason with him first, but if that fails we'll have to physically restrain him."

With that they set off up the stairs, Angua leading the way and Ken bringing up the rear. He tried to be silent and stealthy, he really did. But the buildings of Ankh were multiverse leaders in creaky floorboard technology, so he had to settled for the slightly lesser goal of 'not to making too much of a racket'.

Once they had ascended to the second floor, Sergeant Angua nodded her head at a partially open door, which Carrot gently pushed open to reveal a gloomy room filled with technical-looking equipment. An array of butter knives studded the walls and floor, clearly thrown by somebody with some proficiency in this area.

As his eyes adjusted to the lack of light, he could see, in the far corner of the room, a figure sat twitching on a stool in front of the knobs and levers of the establishment's small legally dubious clacks tower.

As the two Watchmen and one Watchwerewolf inched forwards the features of the small, juddering figure became clearer.

"Omi!"


	7. Cracking Under the Influence

A/N: Huge thank you to everybody who reviewed the last chapter, I'm really happy you thought that . Big thanks especially to Katatonia's for the hilarious mental image of Omi as Pippin from Bagenders. Alas, this caused me to a) ponder which of the Bagenders gang each member of Weiss and Schwarz would be; and b) contemplate writing a fic in which Weiss and Schwarz are forced to share either a three bedroomed semi-detached or maybe a holiday cottage.

-

**Omi**

**-**

Omi was not feeling at all well.

His heart was racing, his limbs were twitching and his mind was filled with the horrible certainty that there were, out there in the vastness of creation, an innumerable number of hideous, painful fates that could await him at any time during his existence. Any shadow could be an enemy. Any noise the sound of an invisible foe preparing to make the kill.

When he'd accepted the first cup of coffee from Unsteady Bill he'd thought that it was a little stronger than usual. However, having already been awake for the forty-nine hours, owing to the fiendish complexity of the clacks code from the Palace he was trying to crack, he'd been grateful for the sudden rush of alertness it had given him. Consequently, he'd felt no compunction about accepting a second cup from Mildly Odd Gary.

Oh, what a mistake that had been.

It had taken a few minutes for the full caffeine rush to hit, but when it had… well, his fellow crackers had been extremely fortunate to get out of the little clacks tower with all their existing appendages attached.

It was not that Omi had been rendered delusional; more that he'd entered that state of hyper-cognisance that lies on the far side of sobriety, where the fluffy delusions that make existence bearable are brutally stripped away and one is left staring into an abyss of cold, harsh reality that the human mind was never meant to contemplate.

It was, to put it bluntly, a case of knurdity almost on a par with that which had prompted Achmed the 'I-Just-Get-These-Headaches' to go from jotting down amusing anecdotes about felines to penning the Necrotelicomnicon. Almost. Omi was not quite at the point of making the leap from clacks cracking to hard core demonology(1).

He was however rather concerned about the three figures that seemed to have entered the room. They could, as their forms suggested, merely be two Watchmen and a dog. However, they could also be a thousand other things that happened to very strongly resemble two Watchmen and a dog. Nasty, hungry creatures wanted to try and do unspeakable things to him. Odds were that they were the former rather than the latter; but then probability also suggested that one was extremely unlikely to get sucked through a hole in space, time and narrative reality to the Discworld's most pestilent city, during the middle of a routine mission to assassinate the leader of a crime syndicate, and look what had happened there.

_"Omi!"_

He jumped violently at sound of his name being called out by a startled and very familiar voice.

"Ken?" he croaked, torn between relief at seeing a recognisable face and fear that said recognisable face did not belong to his Ken, but rather a horrible entity that had adopted Ken's shape in order to trick him into a false sense of security before… before, doing something terrible, though not yet specified, to him.

"Omi, what have they done to you?" the perhaps-Ken said, face etched with horrified concern.

"Be careful Lance Constable," cautioned perhaps-Ken's fellow Watchman.

"But this is my friend Omi," protested perhaps-Ken, head jerking sharply around in a way that caused Omi to recoil.

"He's had six doses of Hersheban Midnight," said the other Watchman, who Omi vaguely recognised as being – or at least taking the same form as – the nice man who'd kindly informed him that he was welcome to try and join the Watch in a few years time, after he'd been rejected on the basis of 'looking about twelve'(2).

"Hersheban… midnight?" Omi shuddered convulsively. He had no idea what it was but it definitely sounded bad. "You mean that somebody's… poisoned me?" His mind instantly began to race through a list of possible suspects. There was Schwarz obviously; he'd so far spotted three out of four of them around the city (and was still feeling just a little sore about the fact that Nagi Naoe: Trainee Wizard extraordinaire was being allowed to get his hands on the thaumaturlogically enhanced thinking machine known as HEX). Then there was Mrs Whistleworth from next door but one who frequently complained about the noise that the makeshift clacks tower made at nights. And then there was the possibility that it was Omi himself who'd done it, while taken over by a suicidal alternate identity (undoubtedly an unlikely occurrence, but, as previously mentioned, Omi and basic probability were not currently on the best of terms).

"It's an extra potent hybrid variant of Klatchian coffee," explained the other Watchman. "We don't think that your friends meant for you to have so much but-"

"His _friends_ did this to him?" The perhaps-Ken demanded, face suddenly thunderous.

Omi jumped at the ferocity of perhaps-Ken's response.

The dog, whom until that point had been sitting patiently behind the other Watchman, gave a small and strangely cautionary bark. There was something about the creature's expression that, to Omi's mind at least, was distinctly un-doglike. Unfortunately, in the young man's caffeine addled brain, this only served to notch up the feeling that there was something very odd going on.

"Be careful, Ken," said the other Watchman. "He's in a delicate condition."

For one brief yet terrifying moment Omi wondered if the man was trying to imply that he had somehow, through consuming this Hersheban Midnight stuff, become the multiverse's first human victim of male pregnancy(3). Thankfully for Omi's currently fragile psyche, there were some lengths to which even this bout of paranoia was not willing to go.

"Besides, I don't think that they meant for this to happen," said the other Watchman.

"For what to happen?" said Omi, who, despite the possibility that he could be conversing with a pair of body snatching soul stealers, was experiencing an inexplicable urge to trust the large, red-haired Watchman.

"For you to become this knurd."

Perhaps-Ken muttered something about betrayal. There was a sincerity to it that caused Omi to concede that, despite the possibility of body snatchers, this was in fact his Ken.

"I think they probably thought it was a joke," said Omi, recalling something that Gary had said about initiating him into the Brewer Street Cracking Circle. He had thought that said initiation would involve some variant of 'wet towel tag', but hyper-caffeination by deception was plausible too.

Ken shook his head. "Omi, how did you fall in with company like that?"

Omi gave small and rather shuddery shrug. "It just kind of happened."

And indeed it had. Having been rejected by the Watch as a potential employee and faced with Ken, Yohji and Aya's apparent indifference to seeking a way to get back to Japan, Omi had decided that transferring his computer skills to clacks operation might be a good way to pass the time until the rest of them came to their senses and realised that getting away from this strange and disconcerting world would be a positive goal to work towards. Alas the Grand Trunk had, like the City Watch, not believed his assurances that he was of age and had told him that they wouldn't employ him without first receiving a letter of permission from his mother.

He had encountered Gary, Bill and the rest of the Brewer Street Cracking Club the day after these two humiliating rejections, after rescuing Bill from the predations of a group of unlicensed thieves. They all had a strong commitment to Cracking for Justice, of course, it was just that, when it came down to it, they seemed to spend more time deciphering and sniggering over Lady Selachii's private correspondences than they did going after 'The Man'.

"Well, I hope you all take this as a lesson," said the other Watchman.

Omi gave a jerky and miserable nod. His paranoia was starting to dissipate to the point where he did not feel the necessity to hurl sharp pointing objects at any shadow that moved; but the palpitations, shaking and sky-high stress levels were showing no immediate sign of abating.

"Is there anything we can do for him, Captain Carrot?" said Ken, clearly seeing his discomfort.

Captain Carrot seemed to ponder this for a moment. "The only thing that could counteract knurdity like this is a large dose of alcohol…." The man trailed off, his large honest face brightening. "I do recall seeing one of those two from the Times with a bottle of Bearhuggers. I sure he wouldn't mind sharing."

For some reason this statement caused Ken to bite his lip in order to suppress what looked as though it was trying to be a laugh. "Perhaps Sergeant Angua could ask him for it?"

Not quite sure what Ken found so amusing, Omi watched nonplussed as the dog padded out of the room.

Twenty seconds later there came, from outside, a nasal, mocking laugh, followed by a growl, followed by a hysterical shriek, a string of curses in German and the sound of an uncannily Yohji-like voice telling somebody to pull themselves together.

Omi gave a shaky smile.

He was feeling better already.

-

(1)Though when the whole sorry debacle was over the Librarian of the Unseen University did drop round and conscientiously remove the bits of paper on which the unfortunate young man had been scribbling down clacks code.

(2)His insistence that he was in fact seventeen and therefore perfectly old enough to bring dark beasts (or indeed, unlicensed thieves) of Morpork to justice had induced much apparent merriment on the part of many of the other Watchmen present, with several rather crude sounding remarks about growth potions being made.

(3)It was a very good job that Omi had not at this point discovered that unexpected male pregnancy is, in certain areas of the multiverse, a rapidly growing problem. So much so that at least five alternate Hogwarts are now running mandatory seminars for the male students on the risks of implausible pregnancy and how it might be avoided(4).

(4)See Dreya von Uberwald's seminal work _Deux ex Machina and How to Abuse Them_ for a more in depth look (and chortle) at this subject.


	8. When in Morpork

A/N: This was just a very short ficlet set in this crossoververse, which a friend asked me to write. A much longer ficlet featuring Crawford's misadventures on the Disc will be forthcoming sometime in the future.

-

**Aya (again)**

-

Things worked differently in Ankh Morpork.

It was a difficult truth for one Lance Constable Fujimiya to accept, but after several weeks of discovering that acts which would fall firmly into the category of murder back home in Japan were listed as lawful inhumations in the Laws and Ordinances of Ankh Morpork, and that hurling around phrases such as 'Dark Beasts' was liable to offend members of the undead community, he had started to adapt to ebb and flow of life in the Big Wahoonie.

However, there were things that continued to grate against his sense of what was right and just. Things that made him want to reach for his katana and deliver a quick, efficient SHI-NE to the perpetrator.

One of these things took the form of a certain albino, eye-patch wearing, knife-fetishising psychopath who, along with his new many-legged pet luggage, had taken to terrorising Constable Visit each time the unfortunate evangelical Omnian walked passed Miss von Uberwald's Morporkian Coffee House.

Alas, Mr. Vimes had made it clear that you couldn't go around eviscerating members of the public even if they were deranged, psychotic bastards who'd stab you as soon as look at you, unless they were actively trying to resist arrest for crimes committed: and Farfarello had – rather amazingly given his history – yet to break the law(1).

Still, Ran Fujimiya was not a man wholly averse to adaptation and he fast came to the conclusion that when in Morpork one should attempt to think like a Morporkian.

"Constable Dorfl," he said, as he patrolled Peach Pie Street with his fellow Watchman. "I'm told you enjoy religious debate."

"This is true," said the Golem. "I have entered into several disputations with many of the city's key religious figures."

"And these 'disputations', do they take long?"

"Yes. My discussion with the High Priest of Blind Io has been ongoing for almost two years now."

Lance Constable Fujimiya's lips quirked upwards.

"I believe I know a man who would enjoy discussing his religious beliefs with you."

-

(1)Though it was generally understood that he had helped a fair few residents of the city commit suicide.


End file.
